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At the request of a single small paper producer, the Trump administration has announced a preliminary decision to impose tariffs of up to 10 percent on Canadian paper. That directly contradicts the administration’s stated goal of job creation and retention in the United States.

North Pacific Paper Co., which is owned by the New York City hedge fund One Rock Capital and employs 260 people at its mill in Washington state, claimed that unfair Canadian government subsidies had resulted in Canadian producers dumping “uncoated groundwood paper” — that used in newspapers and books — in the United States at below-market rates.

The Commerce Department has imposed tariffs of between 4.42 percent and 9.93 percent on paper produced by three Canadian companies.

If the tariffs survive, they adversely will affect the entire U.S. newspaper industry and other printing companies that employ about 750,000 U.S. workers, and more than 6,000 Americans who work for the three Canadian companies.

Demand for newsprint has declined. A well-documented decline in print advertising and declining print circulation of U.S. newspapers drives the market as the transition to digital publishing continues. As the News Media Alliance has reported, American paper producers have not lost market share to Canadian producers in the process. Canadian producers reduced production capacity more than their American competitors did between 2014 and 2016, a period during which Canadian paper imports declined.

And the newsprint market is regional. The International Trade Commission found in September that 91 percent of Canadian newsprint is sold in the Midwest and Northeast; only 4.6 percent is sold in Norpac’s marketing area.

Since the tariff decision defies the economics of the case, it appears that the Trump administration is using the paper issue as leverage in negotiations over the North American Free Trade Agreement. Earlier, the administration had imposed an 18 percent tariff on some types of Canadian raw lumber.

But the administration’s rationale for reopening NAFTA is to protect American jobs. This action clearly would cost American jobs.

The Commerce Department is expected to make a further ruling in March, and the International Trade Commission also will rule by September. The administration should reverse course and let the market govern.

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